Question CPU temperature rising to limit within seconds - what to do against this?

[colettina]

I just have completed the building of my new desktop PC, based on a ASrock B850M Pro-A WiF, Ryzen 5 7600X, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB NVME-SSD. The CPU is cooled by air cooler be quiet Shadow-rock https://www.bequiet.com/de/cpucooler/570
This cooler is recommended for this CPU and even for slight overclocking. But I never do overclocking.

Now I have run a Linux program called "stress", which will stress CPU, memory and IO and can be limited to the count of CPU cores and threads. Before I started this program, the ambient temperature in the computer case was at around 30°C and the CPU was idle at around 40°C. When I started the program, within 1 or 2 seconds the CPU temperature rised to 80°C limitation, which I had set in the BIOS.
I think that this is very unusual and would normally point to a improperly mounted cooling device. But I am an experienced builder and I know, that I have mounted everything at best. The manufacturer of the air cooler does not recommend a torque force for the two screws, which will press the cooler to the CPU. At first, I applied only slight force to these screws. But after experiencing the temperature problem, I have applied more force to the screws, so that the pressure to the CPU should be surely strong enough. But the rising of the temperature was the same as before!

Now I can do only slight office work with my PC but not rendering video clips or doing similar tasks.

When choosing this air cooler, my criteria have been:
very low noise even when under heavy load
CPU should not become hotter than 70°C under full load
Cooler should be light weight and having a flat design

Does anyone else here has experiences with this special air cooler (be quiet shadow rock lp)?
Is this cooler too weak for the thermal load? And if so, what would be alternative recommendations, meeting my criteria?

 

[Lutfij]

The CPU is cooled by air cooler be quiet Shadow-rock https://www.bequiet.com/de/cpucooler/570
This cooler is recommended for this CPU and even for slight overclocking. But I never do overclocking.
I'd have looked into a tower style cooler instead of a low profile cooler. The cooler you have is best for applications where you are limited with space, whereby the fan draws in cooler ambient air from the side panel in a sandwich style case.

What is the make and model of your case? Have you tried undervolting? What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

Does anyone else here has experiences with this special air cooler (be quiet shadow rock lp)?
I used it to cool an A10-6800K but it wasn't ideal for my platform in an InWin BP659, slim itx case.

 

[colettina]

Yes I know, that tower style cooler would be more efficient in thermal measures, but most of them have big weight. Therefor they are prone to vibrations, which could do harm to the mainboard and the CPU connections. That's the reason, why I have chosen a flat style cooler.

My case is an old Lian Li. It is somehow exotic because the mainboard has to be mounted upside down, because the base plane for the mainboard is at the left side of the case. The case is bi enough for eATX boards and it has more volume than usual because it has more width.

There is a fan at the backside of the case which will soak air in and blow it directly to the CPU-fan. The effect is similar to using a fan, which is mounted at the case side.

BIOS is the latest version from May 2025. I have custom set the fans, so that they are at maximum speed already at 70°C. The CPU heats up so quick at the stress test, that the fans do not react as quick (it means within 1 or 2 seconds). In the BIOS I have set the CPU max temp at 80°C in order to protect the CPU.

The be quiet cooler is specified up to 135 Watts while the Ryzen 5 7600X does consume max 105 Watts. So this cooler seems to be far from well functioning!

 

[bill001g]

Why do you limit it to 80c.
Generally the goal with cooling is to keep the temperature below the thermal throttle limit setting the fans to be as quiet as possible.

If I keep my AMD cpu straight I think your does not throttle until 95 degrees. The CPU is designed to protect itself and reduce the clocks if it hits this 95 point. It run exactly the same at 80 degrees as it does at 94. Although for performance reasons you want to keep it cooler than 95 degrees it does not hurt the cpu to let it run like that.

Take the side off the case and see if it makes any difference.

Where do you think you are going to get vibrations from. Are you moving the pc while it is running. Even a extremely out of balance fan will not cause enough vibration to matter and likely you would be irritated by the noise and replace it anyway.

As long as it will fit in your case I would just get one of the cheap thermaltake dual tower coolers. Since you now have much more metal and 2 fans I suspect you can reduce the fan noise even more and keep the cpu cooler.

 

[TerryLaze]

The be quiet cooler is specified up to 135 Watts while the Ryzen 5 7600X does consume max 105 Watts. So this cooler seems to be far from well functioning!

No, it has a TDP of 105W but the PPT, which is the max power, is 142W
Official max temp for your CPU is 95° so you shouldn't have to do anything, that's just how these CPUs work.
If you still want lower temps go into your bios and lower the PPT to what your cooler can handle.
https://gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc

1. Default for Socket AM4 is at least 142W on motherboards rated for 105W TDP processors.

 

[Gururu]

If you push your CPU to 100% then it will spike 80+. Not much you can do to stop it. I guess the bigger question is does the temp plateau or sink once all your fans and throttling kick in. If the temp keeps rising then you have a problem. But I am not an advocate of stress testing. Might as well see how stable your pc is with no fans.

 

[colettina]

OK so far. If there is no other solution, then I will chose a tower cooler. But the main question has been:

Is the be quiet cooler able to col my CPU down to under 70°C while full load? Or is it an indication, that I would have made a mistake on mounting?

@Gurur Do I understand your statement right, that even the most capable air cooler will not be able to cool the CPU well beyond 80°C, when it is completely under full load?

 

[Gururu]

@Gurur Do I understand your statement right, that even the most capable air cooler will not be able to cool the CPU well beyond 80°C, when it is completely under full load?

Of course depends on CPU and cooler, but in general for example consider the review for Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III. In this review the cooler can keep a 14700k under 80 under stress. This is impressive and the cooler would probably keep your CPU even cooler. However, spikes upon load are unavoidable and you would still potentially see spikes up to 90 with the Freezer 3. I am not certain, but others can comment on this.

 

[Misgar]

My case is an old Lian Li. It is somehow exotic because the mainboard has to be mounted upside down

I have at least six Lian Li builds, three of them in v2000 cases, so I'm used to upside-down mobos.

For a really exotic Lian Li case, check out the PC-S80. Fully baffled inside to reduce noise.
http://dansdata.com/llpcs80.htm

I'm running a 7950X in my PC-S80, with a big Noctua NH-D15 heatsink. I'm not restricting the CPU temperature and it's been working since December 2022 at temperatures up to +95°C.
https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15

My 7950X sits at +85°C to +93°C (all core) on 11 hour transcodes in Topaz Video AI. The longest run was 36 hours solid.

There is a fan at the backside of the case which will soak air in and blow it directly to the CPU-fan.

I do the exact opposite in all my cases and set the rear fan{s) to blow hot air out of the case. That's because I use big air coolers, e,g Noctua NH-D14 (on a 3800X) and Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 or similar (on Intel Xeons).
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se

If you want a low profile cooler, try the Thermalright SI-100. I only use them when I can't squeeze a proper dual-tower twin-fan cooler into a low profile case, e,g Home Theatre PC..
https://wccftech.com/review/the-king-of-top-down-cooling-thermalright-si-100-sff-review/

When I started the program, within 1 or 2 seconds the CPU temperature rised to 80°C limitation, which I had set in the BIOS.

That's perfectly normal behaviour for modern Intel and AMD processors. When you run intensive programs, CPU frequency boosts rapidly up to the temperature limit. That way you get maximum performance out of the CPU.

CPU should not become hotter than 70°C under full load

Restricting modern AMD CPUs to +70°C when they're capable of +95°C (or +100°C for Intel) is like changing gear in a racing car, well before you reach the "power band". Sure you'll save fuel, reduce heat and increase engine life, but you'll sacrifice a great deal of performance.

By all means stick with +70°C, but were I to limit my 7950X this way, my 11 hour transcodes would probably take around 20 hours.

My old Phenom II X4 955 and 965 systems have a maximum limit of +60°C. If you overclock the CPUs and the temperature gets to +63°C, the operating system crashes. We've advanced a long way since 2009 when the 955 was released.

Modern CPUs are designed to run hot. It's OK.

 

[colettina]

Thank you for all the valuable responses here! After reading all and after looking more intense in the tests about air coolers here at Tom's Hardware, I have decided to exchange my BeQuiet cooler against a Thermalright Assassin Spirit 120 V2 Plus.
In my opinion, this cooler leaves enough space for access to the DDR5 and it is OK for TDP of more than 225 W. My Ryzen 5 7600X has 105 W TDP, so that it should fit with large reserve. As I could see from tests here, I can expect at 23°C ambient temp:
@ 85 W load 60°C – @135 W load 70°C – @235 W load 96°C

I just have ordered it and I wonder, what the results will be. I will report here again.

BTW: I have experience in designing industrial electronics. With the goal of long evity of electronic parts, we always have designed for low temperatures and also for keeping temperature changes as low as possible. The larger and the more frequently the temperature changes occur, the more extension and contraction in the materials happen and his could contribute to an too early failure.
And when I look at the wide spread tower cooler, which easily ave weights of more than 1 kg and they often are only fastened by a small metal holder with only two screws, meaning only two points for all he forces, which are acting in these points an leading all the forces into the mainboard, then I cannot really trust this construction.

 

[Misgar]

My Ryzen 5 7600X has 105 W TDP,

Don't forget the PPT limit for the 7600X is 142W, but that's still well below the nominal 225W capacity of the Spirit 120 V2.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Zen/AMD-Ryzen 5 7600X.html

I can expect at 23°C ambient temp:
@ 85 W load 60°C – @135 W load 70°C – @235 W load 96°C

I suspect you might have been looking at this graph or similar for the +96°C figure. You'll note most of the bigger heatsinks and AIOs did significantly better.

The 7600X will probably boost all the way up to the +95°C limit when running benchmark stress programs.

With the goal of long evity of electronic parts, we always have designed for low temperatures and also for keeping temperature changes as low as possible.

When working in the Aero Space industry, we tested systems down to -51°C/-55°C and up to some silly temperatures, plus shock, vibration and drop. Like you, we rated components conservatively.

I'm not so concerned about running my 7950X up to +95°C. My computer won't plummet to earth if the CPU fails but it might emit magic smoke. I've been using it since Dec. 2022 and will replace in another 2.5 years if it survives.

when I look at the wide spread tower cooler, which easily ave weights of more than 1 kg and they often are only fastened by a small metal holder with only two screws, meaning only two points for all he forces, which are acting in these points an leading all the forces into the mainboard, then I cannot really trust this construction.

For this reason I remove large dual tower coolers (Noctua NH-D15, Phantom Spirit 120) and big GPUs before transporting PCs. If you're worried about excess mass, fit an AIO. The water block and pump should weigh less than your 120 V2 Plus. I'd be happy to bung an AIO on a vibration table without fear of it damaging the mobo, but wouldn't be surprised if the pipes "pinged" off.

 

[colettina]

I suspect you might have been looking at this graph or similar for the +96°C figure. You'll note most of the bigger heatsinks and AIOs did significantly better.

Yes, I had a look at this graph. Thermalright Peerless Assassin 140 is a two tower construction with 1,8 kg. But I wanted not to overdo things. 🙂 – And yes, I could choose a water cooled solution. I will take this i account, if the Thermalright which I have chosen now, would not be sufficient.

The link to cpu-world.com was not available for me due to ip-blocking. Perhaps I should look for a good VPN?